


Destiny

by Ingridarcher



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Crime, F/M, Gen, Heist, attempt at canon, unintentional homosexual undertones
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-06
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2017-12-10 14:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ingridarcher/pseuds/Ingridarcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a close poker game, the country conmen Malcolm Graves and Emilian Fate decide to team up. 2 years later, the ties that once held them together grow thin...but are they the ties of fraternal loyalty, or of convenience?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Graves**

Every man has a tell.

       I’m even goin’ to give mine up. It’s my toes, see; when I get nervous, I wiggle ‘em something fierce. Lucky for me, sittin’ up at a table looking at your cards, no man’s going to notice a little toe wiggling. That’s why I never bet my boots, no matter the stakes.

       I know this man across me has a tell because I know every man has a tell, but after 3 hours of play I’ll be damned if I know what it is. We both caught each other hand-muckin’ early in the game, and after that it’s been all honest play; them’s is odds I don’t much like. Normally I like to make a game last as long as possible, but I’m man enough to admit that for the first time in years I might actually lose a card game. I have to end this quick, and Lady Luck had given me the hand to do it.

       Five-card draw. Sixes wild. The poor bastard deals me the ace of clubs and the six of diamonds, then another ace, another six and a deuce on the draw. Now, a deuce kicker ain’t going to do you any good, but it don’t need to when you’re sittin’ on four aces. I wiggle my toes instead of smiling. I’m gonna stomp this cowboy into the ground; I almost feel sorry for him.

       He’s across the table and I can’t really tell if he’s lookin’ at me or his cards with the brim of that hat so damn low. Our game’s got the whole bar quiet; just the clink of glasses and the low buzz of murmuring voices. Even the line gals have clammed up, leanin’ over the second floor railing to watch, their tits popping out of their corsets like oysters out of their shells.

       The man across me counts up eight-large worth of chips and snaps ‘em stack by stack into the center of the table, neat-like. I gotta wriggle my toes to keep from grinning wide. He’s big, but he ain’t as big as me, and that means that he’s goin’ to follow me into this if I lead him. I take a second to pretend I’m thinkin’ hard about it, as if I got anything to lose with a hand like this, then I push my whole pile into the center and say “All in,” my chips spilling over onto his with a clatter, mussing up all them neat stacks. I think he’s sweatin’ under the brim of that hat, but I can’t tell. There’s about 20 seconds of breathless silence from all the bar patrons, then he takes the bait and calls.

       I don’t have to wriggle my toes this time; all I’ve got to do is grin from ear to ear and drop my cards face-up on the table. I’ll give the boy credit; he don’t even blink. Most people who lose 12,000 creds in a single poker game turn red and want to take it outside, but this boy is like stone as I reach across the table to scoop up that fat pile of chips. Instead he holds up a hand, and I stop. He’s still holding his cards. He lays one down face up—it’s the ace of hearts.

       I lean back.

       The next card he puts down is the six of clubs and my heart jumps into my throat. He puts down the six of spades next, and now my whole leg is shakin’ like a rattler’s tail. When he lays the ace of spades I’ve got to grab onto the edge of the table or I might fall out of my chair.

       I’m done; all the money I cleaned out of this shithole burg, every penny I own, is on this table. Whatever that last card of his is, it’s gotta be better than my measly deuce. He’s lookin’ at me, at least I think he is, and he’s wearing this tiny smirk. I about punch it off his face, I’m so boiling. He chuckles once, smooth and quiet-like, then lays the two of hearts.

       The joint explodes, cheers and whoops, and I’m right up there with them, hollerin’ my lungs out. Before I know it I’m on the other side of the table slapping this boy on the back, shaking his hand and telling him what a damn good game he played.

       “I ain’t never matched a game like that against no one, hehe! Hell with the rest, with a hand like that, we gotta call it here!” He turns his head so the light falls on his eyes. They’re brown. He’s smilin’, and the smile crinkles those eyes up around the edges. It’s a good sign.

       “Couldn’t agree more,” he tells me, and I wiggle my toes instead of sighing a big, old sigh of relief. I’m a greedy son of a bitch, but even I know that me and this man here are evenly matched, and I don’t like them odds.

       “Let me buy you a drink, stranger, hehe,” I tell him, then snap my fingers at the less-than-comely barmaid, “Here, darling! Two shots of whiskey, one for me and one for...y’know, I never did catch your name...”

       “Emilian Fate,” he drawls in a voice smooth as espresso, still smirking. I reach out my hand and we shake like proper folks.

       “Fate, huh? Well, ain’t that a kick in the dick, heh! Name’s Graves, Malcolm Graves, and it’s mighty fine to meet you, Emil—can I call you Emil?” Emilian nods, opening his hands palm up. It’s another good sign; it means he trusts me. Means I can trust him at least a little; probably about a second drink’s worth. So I grab the old barmaid when she walks by again, ask her if the bartender is her sister when I know it’s her daughter, then order 2 more shots.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Few hours later Emil’s got 3 shots and 5 beers worth of my trust, which is more than most men get. He shouldn’t, seein’ how he turns out to be a card shark and conman just like myself. We exchange stories about heists and hustles and all the women in between. We talk about the newest League match like it’s boxing and not a scaled-down war.

“Trade routes, I think, but really Demacia and Noxus will use any excuse to fight one another,” Fate tells me, takin’ a sip of whiskey then fanning his deck of cards out to me. I snatch one; it’s the ten of diamonds.

“How do they pick the folk that brawl for each side, anyway?” I ask him as he takes the card from me without looking.

“Most volunteer to represent their city-state,” Fate explains while he shuffles the deck again. He’s keepin’ my card at the top, I can tell.

“Why the hell would anyone do that?” I ask, mostly to myself, wiggling my toes so he can’t tell I’m seein’ through his trick. Emil answers me anyway.

“Honor. Glory. Revenge,” Fate says, shrugging as he straightens the cards, “Or just the experience. The Summoners are the greatest conjurors in the world, after all. Is this your card?” He flips the top card up and it’s the jack of hearts.

“No...” I say, more surprised than if it had been. He gets that little smirk on his face again and flicks the back of the card. In a blink, it changes to my ten of diamonds.

“How about now?” he asks, but I can tell he already knows he’s right.

“Damn!” I blurt out, “Hehe! How’d you-” Fate flps his wrist, and I see the jack of hearts ‘tween his middle finger and thumb, hiding sidelong behind my card.

“A trick,” he says, and tilts his head down while he reshuffles the cards, “Not the real magic the summoners use.” There’s a long silence, and while he pushes the cards together his bell sleeve rides up. There’s something...shimmering coatin’ his skin there, pearl-like, the way oil is in a puddle. He catches me lookin’ and pulls the sleeve down. I smile at him as way of an apology.

“Y’know, there’s two types of people in this world, Emil,” I tell him, “ones who believe in coincidence and ones that believe in _destiny_. I’m the kind of man that believes everything happens for a reason, and that’s why I think we were meant to meet each other in this here bar tonight, hehe. Those cards? Those matching hands after one of the most intense poker games I ever had in my life? That was destiny’s way of tellin’ us we ought to work together; and I’ve always said... ‘don’t mess with destiny,’ hehe! What do you say?” Fate shakes his head at me, chucklin’ smooth-like.

“Destiny, hm?” he says, still shuffling the cards, and I can’t read what he’s thinkin’ from under that hat, “I think you’re right, Malcolm Graves. I too believe in destiny. In the name, after all; but first, we should work out how we’ll split the takes.” Fate cuts the deck, puts the halves together backwards, then fans ‘em out on the table, tapping the first two that are face-down. I pick them up; it’s the seven and three of spades. “Seventy/thirty,” he says, and he’s smirkin’ again, “My way.”

I grin under my mustache. The both of us know this is gonna end splittin’ fifty/fifty, because that’s how we’re matched—evenly. Don’t mean we don’t spend the next beer and a half negotiating. It ain’t about the split just like cons ain’t about the take and our card game weren’t about who won. It’s about the game, and for the first time in a long time, I think I found someone who can play it as good as me.


	3. Chapter 3

“We’re here for the girl,” one of the goons growled, “and that cowboy who took her.”

The scabs are lookin’ right at us, 6 big thugs. Angie’s eyes are wide and white as the moon and her chubby little fingers are diggin’ mean into my arm. Fate’s givin’ me a look I’ve got real used to in the past two years. It means “What did you get us into this time, Malcolm Graves?”

“Get under the bar, babe,” I tell Angie, but she’s froze next to me, lookin’ at the scabs closing in. She’s shaking. “I said, get your ass under that bar, now!” I roar this time, and Angie jumps, rushing over to hide beneath the counter with the bartender, her pudgy arms folded over her red hair.

The goons are on us. I grab the round table we’re sittin’ at and crack it across a blonde thug’s skull. He rolls to onto the dirty concrete floor, groaning. To my left, Fate ducks away from a freckle-faced bastard’s haymaker, then pops the big scab a few times in the gut.

“Who is that girl, Malcolm Graves?” he asks me, voice still smooth; he sounds more pissed than worried about the 1000 pounds of bad guys lookin’ to smash our faces in.

“Angie,” I tell him as I slam one leg of the table between Blondie’s huge eyebrows. He’ll wake up to one mean medical bill tomorrow.

“Angie _what_?” Fate asks, a spit meaner, spinning to the side of another bad punch from Freckles. A city-boy with a ponytail steps over his unconscious compadre to get to me.

“...Angie Priggs, hehe,” I answer, swallowin’ the cotton in my throat and holding the table up as a shield. Fate shuts his eyes and takes in one long breath of pissed off before trippin’ Freckles then cracking him in the back of the neck with his elbow.

“Angie Priggs,” Fate hisses, kickin’ Freckles while he’s down, “as in Mrs. _Aregor_ Priggs?”

I got time to grin and shrug before Ponytail cracks my shield in two with his blackjack. I use the two pieces in my hands and clap ‘em against the his ears; they shatter to splinters. I hear a cry from my right. Some skinny bastard’s fishin’ beneath the bar for Angie. I see him with his hand clasped around her wrist before one of the scabs drops the floor out from under me.

I hit my back hard, and open my eyes just in time to see the blackjack comin’ down at my ribs. I manage to get my forearm in the way before it connects, but _damn_ it stings.

“Of all the people you could purloin a bride from, why’d it have to be Aregor Priggs?” Fate snarls, “I thought I told you to case a bank job.” He’s on the other side of the room by now—damn, he’s quick—and a sound like the sharpening of a knife tells me he’s takin’ his cards out.

Fate’s got this cursed deck, see–not an according-to-hoyle 54 set–one of those gypsy decks with the 3-color backs. They’re the closest thing Fate’s ever gotten to usin’ magic, though it ain’t from lack of trying. I’ve seen the cards do all kinds of strange malarky...but mostly they just cut through people like cake. One moment, three scabs are freight-trainin’ right for him, and the next they’re all bent over, trying to tug a card out of one of their body-parts.

“I _was_ at the bank!” I protest, looking forward again and seein’ that the city-boy with the blackjack has shook it off, “That’s when I found Ms. Angie-”

“Mrs. Angie,” Fate hisses, taking out another trio of cards and gettin’ backed into a corner.

“-cryin’ up a storm about her husband’s ‘executive account,’ hehe.” The city-boy’s windin’ up for another blow now, this time at my throat. _So we’re fightin’ dirty, are we?_ I think to myself, _I can fight dirty_. “This is going to tickle,” I growl with a grin, then I give the boy the dirtiest kind of fight there is with my steel-toed boot. He squeaks in a right unmanly way, then drops to his knees, clutchin’ his manbits. I look back to Fate when I hear his cards snappin again; the three goons are goin’ to look like porcupines by the time they get to him.

“Turns out Arry Priggs has been using it for drinking, whoring, gambling” I call over to him as I get to my feet and give the city-boy another kick for good measure, “and laundering 350,000 worth of untraceable creds. Right there when I walk in, hehe! It was destiny! You don’t-”

“-mess with destiny, _I know_ ,” Fate cuts in, exasperated, dartin’ to the side as the three scabs finally close in. I start to move over to help him when I hear a crash of glass behind me. I spin on my heels, sure somethin’ awful has gotten to poor Mrs. Priggs. To my shock and awe, the girl’s holdin’ the business end of a ‘39 scotch, and the skinny goon’s folded over the bar, his face wet with liquor and his greasy hair sportin’ shards of glass.

I got enough time to smirk before I hear the sound a whip makes on a horse’s hide across the room. The three scabs are shoulder-to-shoulder in a corner, cards sticking out all over, and Fate’s on the ground, curled up in a ball and takin’ hit after hard hit. Those goons, they got that hungry look, the one men get when bruises ain’t enough. One of them’s got a golf club. Another’s got a chain.

I have to help.

I tell Angie to reach into the left pocket of my poncho where I keep my revolver, grab city-boy’s blackjack, and close the distance between me and Fate. Preparin’ a hard right swing, I crack the chain-wieldin’ goon just right on the back of his head. He drops like a rock into his buddy. The gal with the golf club, she’s too damn excited to even notice, and when she swings the bloody iron back again I catch it with one hand.

She turns to look at me, manic and confused, and I swing the blackjack around to catch her in the gut. She wheezes, letting go of the club and reaching for her belly. I help Fate to his feet and cringe; that face of his don’t look quite so pretty no more. He curls his fat lip up over his teeth. He socks our golfer straight in the nose, and she goes down without a fuss. Emilian looks to me now.

I almost grasp the handle of the golf club with both hands, because the look on Fate’s face tells me he’s goin’ to punch me next. I was saved by the sound of hammer bein’ pulled back, if you can call it saved. We both turn, wide-eyed—the toehead I’d clocked between the eyes has gotten up and aimed a .44 magnum in our direction.  Ain’t the first time Fate or me have gotten a gun pointed at us, but we don’t plan on it bein’ our last, so we both put our hands up real slow.

“Easy, Pardner, heh...” I tell him in a coaxin’ voice. The goon snarls, teeth all bloody, his gun hand shakin’, and he moves the barrel from Emilian to me. His eyes flash.

“You are dead!” he howls in a Freljord drawl, and I see his trigger-finger twitch. The thunderclap of the gunshot makes my ears ring so hard I can’t feel the pain. I must have fallen to the ground by now, but I don’t want to open my eyes and see the blood. I can’t feel it yet; I just smell the gunpowder in the air and feel Emilian’s elbow. A thump of something big and fleshy hits the ground in front of me.

_Wait...that ain’t right..._

I peel back my eyelids and through the haze I see Mrs. Angie Priggs with my single-action in her hands. She’s got this real mean look on her face, but when she notices me noticing she lowers the revolver, simpering, shaken but impressed with herself. I look down and lift a foot as the blonde bastard’s blood starts to pool out across my boots. I can’t seem to pick my jaw up from the floor.

“I...I’ve never shot a gun before...” she says, smilin’ a nervous, sheepish smile, “Sorry it took me so long, stupid me, I forgot to take the safety off...” I cackle, leap over the bar and hug the girl so hard I think she might pop.

“Sorry? Girl, you just saved our skins, the last thing I want you to be is sorry!” She giggles as I land a dozen kisses on her neck. Fate’s voice behind me cuts mean into my relief.

“We could have gotten 350,000 or more from the bank heist, Malcolm Graves,” Fate whispers. His normally smooth voice is shaking, and even through the bruises I can see he’s bull-mad, “and not incurred the wrath of the most powerful man in Zaun. You always do this–I send you out by yourself and you come back with a dame.”

I slip an arm around Angie’s shoulders and manage to look offended, “Name me the times that’s happened, hehe.”

“I ain’t got that many fingers!” Fate screeches, his eyes wide and wild. He never yells like that except when...

“You’re still on the Shimmer, ain’t you?” I whisper low, takin’ a few steps forward, “I thought I told you to cut it out with that radioactive shit, it makes you crazy.”

“It ain’t your business what I do with my money, Malcolm Graves,” he hisses in a threatening tone.

“You know that bunk about it givin’ you magic powers is just somethin’ your pusher says to sell that toxic crap, don’t you?” I ask him rhetorically, “Honestly, Fate, what kind of conman lets himself got conned?”

Fate’s thin posture relaxes back to normal and he tips his head down so the brim of his hat hides his eyes. “I won’t be lectured by you of all people, Malcolm Graves. You never think things through, you just blunder blindly forward and hope ‘destiny’ will work it out for you. If I remain your partner, it’s going to get us both killed one day.”

“Emil-”

“You chased the wrong skirt this time. Have you any idea the amount of heat you’ve brought down on us?”

“It’ll be worth it, Fate, just listen-”

“I’m _done_ listening,” he rasps, and holds my eyes for a good, long moment so I know he means it, then spins on his spurs and pushes out into the alley.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Malcolm Graves and Angie hole up in a hideout.

Angie curls her lip up at the smell of the alley, and whispers to me that muddy water is getting in her shoes and stingin’ her toes. I tell her to hush as I knock three times, pause, then knock two more. Old Mercer’s familiar, craggy face peers out past the chain, green with the light from the scumglobes. He grunts, shuts the door hard, then opens it back up again, turning and walkin’ into the run-down gambling house. The place weren’t never fancy, but it used to at least be good for a few drinks, a game of cards and a cheap trick. After the sewer floods couple years back, though, it smelled too awful and cost too much to repair. Mercer was near as low as a man could be, with hardly a roof above his head, but I’d run out my luck on every other flophouse in Zaun. I have to trust him.

       We get shown to our room 4 floors up where the smell ain’t so bad. Angie’s stocking feet are padding on the dusty rug in the hallway, her heels clackin’ in her hand. I give the old man the last of my cash in exchange for a shotgun, a nine-mil, the room, and his silence, then Mercer hobbles off down the hall. Angie and me have a tumble to take my mind off what Emil had said, but even that couldn’t put me to sleep.

6 hours later, a red hot iron of a sunrise is peerin’ up between the high rises when I hear footsteps on the rug outside, and I lift my revolver up and thumb back the hammer, naked to the waist and every muscle pulled up tight. Angie’s sighin’ like a babe on the bed, all curled up under my poncho since she was too prissy to use the old yellow sheet Mercer had left for us. Says she’s pretty sure it had been white to start. I tried to tell her elsewise, but I was pretty sure it had been white, too.

       The doorknob rattles on its loose screws; my eyelids flare up and a bead of sweat trickles down my brow. The door creaks open just a crack, and then the barrel of a 9mm peers into the room. It’s pointing at Angie. I get to my bare feet, take two quick steps forward and slam the man’s wrist hard against the doorframe. The gun clatters onto the scuff-up hardwood of the room, and I pull back the door to see Emil’s boyish, swollen, pained face glaring at me. I groan and release him.

“What was _that_ for?” his hisses, clutchin’ his hand to his chest.

“Why the hell were you stickin’ a gun barrel in here?” I shoot back. He glares from under his hat, indignant.

“What’s the matter?” Angie asks sleepily.

“Nothing, babe, go back to bed,” I tell her. She pouts sulky-like at me, but yawns just the same and says her hello to Emilian before layin’ her head back down. Emil watches her, then looks back to me.

“I was checking to make sure you didn’t get made in the night is all,” he whispers. My hard face softens a little.

“How’d you find us?” I ask him, stuffin’ my revolver under the mattress and yawning. Emil only rolls his eyes at me, puttin’ the nine-mil in the nightstand drawer. I knew what I’d planned to say to him if he ever came back–I’d pushed it around in my head half the night, the way you push your vegetables around on your plate, but now that he’s here it’s hard to get the words out. I work my jaw. I wiggle my toes, only realizin’ after that I didn’t have my boots on.

“Look, Emil, I...” I sigh, grabbing my lighter and smokes, pulling the cigarette out and turnin’ it in my fingers, “Heh, I’m sorry about what I said. It weren’t my business.”

There’s this big pause, and then Emil says somethin’ I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say before.

“No, you...you were right, Malcolm Graves,” he drawls low, his voice not quite as smooth as usual, “It’s a good take. We should spirit Mrs. Priggs from Zaun, but...tomorrow. There’s something I must do first, I’ve been...delaying it. A family situation. I’d tell you about it, only-” I put my hand up to stop him and shake my head, then smile to let him know it ain’t a problem. Emilian don’t talk about himself much, and I only once heard him talk about his folks. I know whatever it is, it must be hard enough to do, much less go on about.

“Tomorrow night, heh,” I tell him, “I know a boy at the docks. We’ll say midnight—that enough time?”

Emil’s got his hat off—his long hair’s black the way coffee’s black, and he’s smilin’ at me the way he did years ago after that poker game. It crinkles up the edges of his eyes. It’s a good sign.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Graves and Angie wait for Fate to return so they can all abscond the city with their take.

I walk down to the docks and get a charter to Piltover while Emil gets a few winks of sleep. He leaves around noon, and Angie and I spend the time gettin’ to know each other a little better. The sun gets pink and low then gets gone, and finally we peel ourselves out of bed and throw our clothes on, gettin’ ready to get to the boat. I’d learned to leave the window open since Angie didn’t like the smoke, and I’m standin’ next to it with a cigarette listenin’ to her go on about bareknuckle boxin’.

“Abiddon isn’t a brawler—doesn’t have the chin for it, you know—but Georgey McKellins, _he_ was a great slugger, for real and true,” Angie tells me. While she’s talkin’, I think I hear the clack of oxford shoes on concrete. Men’s voices, maybe, comin’ from down below...

“I was at the Gregor v. McKellins fight back in ‘28,” Angie goes on, “and let me tell you, that knockout took my breath away!”

I strain to listen to the muffled voices bouncing off the bricks from the alley below. Cautiously, I step towards the window, leaning around the sill, and pullin’ back the curtains just enough to look down into the alley. There are four guys, all of them in the cheap, black sack suits them “gentleman criminal” types wear. Bad sign. Black shirts, black vests is a worse one; black don’t show gun residue or bloodstains. Wearin’ all black, you can pop a man with a few holes, dab your face with your black silk pocket square and walk out a place like nothin’ happened. Assassins. Assassins here for me and Fate. Here for Angie.

“Most people try and tell you that out-fighter’s are more skilled, you know, but I _love_ a good brawler. You watch them get all beaten up and bloody, just _aching_ for that one big punch...”

I hiss at her seein’ how she didn’t have the Gods-damned sense in her head to whisper. She shoots me a sour look, and I tell her to move back—out of sight. “What’s the matter?” she asks, finally startin’ to look worried. I peer back out at the alley, and all four of them have got their heads inclined up at my window.

“Shit!” I bark, and probably make more of a stir at the curtains than I ought to have, but I’m pretty sure we’re past that now. Mercer, that miserable bastard, must’ve sold us out; he’s the only one who knows we’re here. I got to move quick.

I turn the couch and push it up against the door; then the dresser, then the bed. It was a mean sort of loud scrapin’ across the room’s scuffed wood floor. Angie puts her hands over her ears.

“What’s happening?” she whispers, pullin’ on her shoes; I can hear her voice hitching. She must be shaking; must be scared out of her head. I keep telling myself I didn’t talk her into this. That I was gettin’ her out of her shit marriage with a bonus cut, not getting her killed.

“Angie,” I breath, sweat already ticklin’ my brow, “You take the check and go out the fire escape, like I told you. Take the handgun. Head for the docks. I should be right behind you, but if I ain’t don’t wait for me or Emil; soon as the boat comes in, you get your pretty self on it, straight?”

Angie nods, but stands in place; I have to take the 9mm from the drawer and put it in her hands. She’s trembling. “Go on, get!”

She jumps and skitters off, her heels clackin’ haphazard to the window and then clangin’ clumsy-like on the grating of the fire escape. She leans in over the sill, her red hair flyin’ all around with the white curtains. I can’t really see her face. She says somethin’ as I slam the nightstand down against the door. I ask her why she’s still here, and she repeats herself.

“I said, ‘what about your cut of the money?’” she asks as I come closer, open the closet, and take out the shotgun.

“There ain’t time for that, just _go_ before I think too hard on it,” I bark, puttin’ two shells in between my teeth and pocketing the rest of the box. I chamber them, snap the muzzle back, and when I look up again she’s gone.

I stand there like a dope for a second thinkin’ if I keep lookin’ she’ll still be there behind them fluttering curtains, but I can hear her heels clanking down the fire escape loud and reckless, then quieter and quieter. 350,000, goin’...goin’...

I lean out to get one last look at her and catch a bit of movement down below. I squint and it’s black shirt black vest number 4. He didn’t go in with the others. He waited out here to catch us in case we came out this way. He’s got his eyes trained on Angie. He reaches into his lapel, and I’ll be damned if I’m not 4 stories up holding a loaded shotgun like it’s goin’ to do shit but make noise at that range. So I do the only thing I can think of: I yell like an idiot.

“Angie, look down!” She looks. She screams. A black six-shooter slides calm-like out from the man’s shoulder-holster. I yell again. “The gun, girl, use the gun!” Angie looks at the pistol like she forgot it was in her hand, then closes her eyes and points it down. I groan.

“It’s not working!” she cries and I start to holler back at her to take off the safety and cock the damn thing, but I’m interrupted by door-slam bang of the assassin’s gun. It ricochets off the fire escape and she squeals and drops to her knees, hands over her head, the gun clackin’ down onto the grating. I curse and run back inside to get my revolver.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A gunfight ensues as the hitmen close in.

I throw the stiff, greasy bedsheet out of my way and lift up the mattress. I see the gun as it slides farther back from me moving the bed. I’m leanin’ in to grab it when I hear another gunshot, then another right after, a quick pair. Angie squeaks and the fire escape clangs like a bell. I curse again, my fingertips brushing the butt of my single-action, and then there’s a knock–just a knock–on my door. I’m standin’ there frozen until they knock again, then I scramble for the revolver. My nail catches the texture on the handle just the right way and then the cold metal’s in my hand and I suddenly feel a damn sight better about the whole thing.

Another round outside, and I guess Angie must have picked the gun back up because she squeezes off a whole mess of shots, and then it’s an all-out gunfight on the fire escape. They stop knocking at the door and start trying to knock it down; big, wood-crackin’ booms. Gotta help Angie first. I rush to the window, my trigger finger itching, and it ain’t until I stick my head out and aim my gun down below that I realize the shooting’s stopped.

Nothing’s moving. I only notice the dingy green of a scum globe reflecting on the ground, all marbled and glittery. It takes me a second to really see that it’s him; black suit, black blood. He’s there, laying sprawled out like he’s tryin’ to make a snow angel in his own gore, his gun a few inches from his hand. Angie’s gone.

“Well I’ll be damned, heh,” I say, quiet-like, “Girl had it in her all along.”

I got enough time to smirk before I hear the crack of wood breakin’ and I see a splintered vignette of a black tie on a black shirt pointin’ the black barrel of a six-shooter at me. I duck just in time for the shot to whiz over my head; just in time to realize I moved all the cover over to block the door; just in time to remember the shotgun on the ground. The boy at the door reaches his arm in, and I crouch and aim the 12 gauge only as much as I need to. There’s a bright muzzle flash, a big old boom, and then the door’s peppered with holes and blood. The ruined arm snakes back out through the hole and the room explodes with gunfire, and I ain’t got time to do shit except hit the deck.

Bullets explode over my head, catchin’ against my back and arms. Over the crash of gunfire I can hear the glass shatter and the wood splinter behind me, the metal squealing overhead. The clack of a clip bein’ ejected gives me the chance I need, and I roll over and pull myself into the closet-sized bathroom. I cock my shotgun, suck in a breath and wait.

The crack of wood. The crash of furniture bein’ turned over. Black patent leather shoes crunch across glass. Closer...I need ‘em closer. I only got one shot at this, and I gotta catch them all in the spray, otherwise they’ll unload and I’ll be a dead man. Hammers being pulled back–closer now. I crouch down. My heart’s goin’ like a jackhammer; I feel it in my chest, my throat, my wrists, my thighs. That hard, fast tickin’, like a stopwatch. 3 seconds. 2....1....

I spin around the door frame and blast from the hip. For a second all I see is the muzzle flash; all I hear is the high, muffled, rollin’ squeal of my ears ringing. Next thing I know I’m stepping over a groanin’ pile of black wool suits. I kick one of them on the ground and spit. “Hope you weren’t plannin’ to die of natural causes, hehe,” I growl at him, sneering.

I leap out the window and fly like a gattling gun down the fire escape, then tear down the alley. My arm’s right tore up from the gunfire and it stings somethin’ fierce, but I ain’t got time to bleed; if I move fast enough, I can catch up with Angie. She’ll be tip-toeing around puddles in those heels of hers. I imagine for a minute pickin’ her up in my arms and carrying her all the way to the docks like some kind of cowboy. I have to laugh at myself, and I’m so busy chuckling I trip over a pile of trash and hit the alley pavement. I groan, because the palms of my hands are all scuffed up, and I’ve landed in a puddle of somethin’ thick and dark. I grumble, lookin’ down at myself. My whole front’s wet and sticky, and under the green light of the scumglobe it looks brown; but there’s a smell, somewhere under the stench of garbage and toxic waste, somethin’ metallic. I squint at my hand, and the stuff glitters red.

I near jump out of my skin at the little sigh comin’ from behind me. I aim my shotgun and near blow the girl’s head off. The gun’s rattlin’ in my hands, I’m shaking so hard. It’s Angie; she looks dead pale, and I can’t tell if it’s the low light or the all the blood that’s spilled out of her. She’s holdin’ her stomach, her pretty blue dress all dark and splotchy. She smiles at me.

“Mr. Graves...I....I got him, didn’t I? That will teach him to shoot at a lady...” she says, and her voice is almost too quiet to hear. I move up next to her and pull her into my arms. Her voice sputters, and she slurs the way you do after novocaine, when your lips feel too big.

“You’re a good man, Mr. Graves, much kinder than I gave you credit for. At first I thought, ‘I could beguile this penniless lowlife,’ but you...you aren’t what I thought you were.”

I hush her, knowin’ what she’s going to say and not wanting to hear it out loud. I want to remember her as that girl cryin’ by her lonesome in the bank and tip-toein’ over puddles in her heels.

“I was never going to give you any of that money...” she begins, then her round face tightens in pain, little breaths rushin’ through her teeth until she can talk again, “I earned it, all of it, lying beneath that swine. I paid for it with my pride. I meant to hire someone to shoot the both of you once we got to Piltover, but...you aren’t who I thought you were, Malcolm...You aren’t...”

The cold metal of a gun barrel presses against the back of my head, pushin’ it forward against Angie’s. I don’t even jump. It’s the end of the line, just like Fate said, and I know it. I’m feeling numb all over, feeling like a damned fool for not listenin’ to Fate and trusting some dame instead; for trusting Mercer to hide us; for trusting anything except my partner and my instincts. What kind of conman lets himself get conned?

The hit-men are cursin’ me up and down, beat to shit holding onto whatever body part I’d peppered with my shotgun. There’s only two, but one’s got a gun to my head, and the other wavin’ down the road at an army of patent leather shoes clapping down the cobbles. Backup’s coming. All I want to do is warn Fate, warn him that Mercer double-crossed us and that some all-black suits will be waitin’ for him when he gets to the docks. Instead, I let them pick me up off the ground and bind my hands with hemp, and lead me out of the alley. A bag goes over my head, and the rest from there’s all dark.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Malcom Graves has been captured, and only pain awaits him.

The light hits me in the face harder than the goon who actually hits me in the face soon as they take the bag off my head. I’m tied to a chair, and they knock me around for a while, and somewhere between punches I get a look around. The room’s so white I feel like I’m floatin’ at first, and the smell of fresh paint makes my brain ache. A dozen punches later, my eyes adjust and I notice that the room’s got these huge windows; not that it does me any good, all that you can see through ‘em is a white-washed hallway. I don’t know why, but I got a sneakin’ suspicion I’m underground. There’s only one other person in the room besides me and the bruiser makin’ mashed ‘taters out of my face. He’s a round, tiny man with glasses and a glossy dome of a bald head. He’s got this smug little smile on his pouty lips, spittle bunched at the edges, his fat cheeks all rosy and puffed up. I mightily want to slug that look right off his fat face. He clears his throat, and his goon’s bloody fist stops mid-swing.

      “Do you know who I am?” he sings. His voice sounds like a magpie’s, all sharp and squeaky. I spit a bloody tooth out of my mouth.

      “I got a few guesses,” I answer, and my voice feels rough in my throat, “My first would be Aregor Priggs.”

      The little man claps his hands excitedly, his chins jigglin’ and his dimples pressin’ into his face. “Ding ding ding ding!” he cries, his voice like a bell, “That’s right, Mr. Graves. Would you like to hear what your prize is?”

      I glare at him through my swollen eyes, and his smug smile makes me want to throw up...or maybe that was all the blood I’d swallowed. “I got a few guesses about that, too,” I tell him, grimly. Priggs titters.

      “I imagine you do. There’s just one thing I love more than my wife, Mr. Graves, and that’s my money. You attempted to spirit both from me; I don’t take kindly to those who take what’s mine.” He was still smiling. I can’t tell you if I’m tryin’ to save my own skin or if I’m still angry, but I rat Angie out to her old man… if you could call a pink lump of flesh like that a man.

       “Angie took _herself_ , Arry, hehe. She was sick of your tiny dick so she was packin’ herself off and bringing the only thing about you she loved with her, hehehe,” I growl at him, my lip curling up over what’s left of my blood-soaked teeth. Priggs’ smile sours a little, but it ain’t gone.

       “Worry not, Mr. Graves. Sweet Angie has been punished for her indiscretion,” Priggs wheezes, pushing back the cuticles of his nails instead of lookin’ at me. I feel a little tug at my chest.

       “...she dead?” I ask, a little afraid of the answer. Inexplicably, Priggs bursts into a chirping laughter, his small, blue eyes sparkling and his hand daintily coverin’ his fat, pouty lips.

       “Oh ho ho, certainly not...” he says, smiling, “But I’m sure she wishes she was.”

       I can’t help it—even though Angie told me she’d planned on havin’ Fate and me killed, I wouldn’t have wished anything like that on her. I struggle in the chair, rocking it on its legs and howlin’ every curse I know when I catch someone in the corner of my eye. They’re in the hallway. Through those big windows I see two boys; black aprons, black rubber gloves, and someone familiar between ‘em, looking the other way down the hall. My gut sinks into my boots.

      "Emil!” I howl out at him, hoping the glass ain’t soundproof, “They got me too, Emil–it was that snake Mercer, he gave us up! This nancy sent hit-men after us, they shot Angie and they got me, but I didn’t tell ‘em nothing! Look, I messed up, but I’m going get us out of this, just you...” I stop when Emil turns around and his hair don’t move the way hair’s supposed to. It moves like he’s underwater...and it ain’t black anymore, not that natural, coffee black it used to be. It’s black like a night sky, and his _eyes_ —when he turns, I swear his eyes reflect at me the way a coyote’s do, like mirrors. Men’s eyes don’t do that.

      “Hells, Emil,” I breathe as he walks in the room, flanked by the two geeks, “Wha… what did they do to you?"

      "Ah, Mr. Graves,” chirps Priggs in his nasally sing-song voice, pleased as punch with himself, “Why, we only gave your friend Emilian what he's always desired: the power of magic. Infusing him with such a power in exchange for your life was certainly a steal on his end, but I was a motivated buyer. Emil's a changed man, as you can see; in fact he tells me he’s even taken a new name. Mr. Graves, meet… _Twisted_ Fate."

      I look over to Emilian because I can’t believe it.  

      "Emil, you… you ratted me out? You turned your coat for this _hog_?"

      "Of course I did,” Fate whispers, “That was always your problem, Malcolm Graves; you made it too personal. You liked that girl, and that made your head soft. If you’d been thinking, you would have known better than to steal from a man like Mr. Priggs. He’s too powerful. Haven’t you figured out by now that the house always wins?”

      Fate takes a step or two forward, then in a snap—in the blink of an eye—he’s just _gone_. The leftover sound of energy all bunched up and then let go is bouncin’ off the whitewashed walls and I get this unnerving, tickling feelin’ on the back of my neck, like when your leg wakes back up. Pins and needles. A small, gloved hand lands on my shoulder, and that espresso voice is behind me, an echo in it that weren’t never there before.

      “You forgot too quick and too often that ours was just an arrangement of convenience. Oddly enough, your weakness for women worked out pretty well for me—I never would have been offered this opportunity otherwise,” Fate says, calm and quiet as he walks around to face me, hair flowin’ too-slow behind him, his face looking uncommonly peaceful. “You might even say it was destiny; and like you always said, Malcolm Graves… you don’t mess with destiny.”

      “I’ll kill you!” I bellow at him, rockin’ my seat from leg to leg and straining against my bonds until they rub my skin off, “I’m gonna blow your damn block off, you dirty, rotten snake!” I hate how the hurt seeps out in my voice. Not the physical pain—the hurt in my chest that proves I’d trusted this two-faced scoundrel; from two drinks worth to two years worth of trust that he kicked me in the teeth with. That smile on his face tells me what a joke it all was; what a joke I am. What kind of conman lets himself get conned?

      I feel the rage boiling in my chest, and I grit my teeth and growl like a dog that’s been beat mean. “Enjoy Mr. Priggs’ prison, Malcolm Graves,” says Fate, “I hear it’s… stimulating.” He grins and turns his back on me. I bellow at him as he walks away - as Priggs’ men start to take me away.

      “I’ll get you for this, Fate! I don’t care if it takes the rest of my days... you’re goin’ to pay, you hear? _You’re goin’ to pay!_ ”

 


End file.
